The alien program and alien presence continues into this century. Here, at the twilight of my career, I think about what kind of future might be left.
Alien Abduction
© Planet-Today.com
In 1901 at the beginning of the twentieth century, the great African-American political theoretician and activist W.E.B. Du Bois said in his The Souls of Black Folk, that the problem of the twentieth century will be the problem of the "color line." By that he meant that the problems that had yet to be worked out will be related to the historical and sociological effects of racism in the United States. Indeed, he was in large part right. The history of America in the 20th and 21st centuries has indeed been the continuous struggle for civil rights and equality. The great struggles that encompassed America after the Depression were once believed to be its confrontation with Fascism abroad and racism at home. Today those two evils have seemingly multiplied on U.S. soil.

We are now two decades into the new millennium and yet our speculative powers seem to have only diminished in the face of unprecedented social, environmental, and political turbulence. Like Du Bois, many commentators have speculated about what the future will bring. Most who prognosticate on the future tend to concentrate on the coming wonders (or salvation) of technology. They have discussed the new and wonderful breakthroughs that await us in the biological and medical sciences - the coming cure for cancer, heart disease, and other physiological problems. They have talked about the new genetics in which gene editing technologies like CRSPR will make humankind perfect by eliminating faulty genes and improving upon others. Scholars now wonder whether our average lifespans can be extended to 150 years while others muse about the far-off possibilities of immortality. Astronomers have discovered potentially Earth-like planets orbiting far star systems, and physicists have provided proof for the existence of subatomic particles as they work towards a completely new model of the universe. Advances in quantum mechanics have opened avenues towards multiverses, dimensional travel, teleportation, and other advances once thought only the realm of science fiction. Computers have already fundamentally altered society, but artificial intelligence technologies, built around sophisticated machine learning algorithms may upend our world the way that the internet has done over the last twenty years.

All these speculations have an optimistic aura about them. Indeed, the 20th and 21st century have statistically been the greatest centuries for human life ever. More people are living better and longer than ever before. There are now more democratic nations than ever before. There is less hunger than ever. But darkness clings to the door lintels. Millions of people still live in grinding poverty. Famines and starvation are not uncommon. Fascist and white supremacist movements, clothed in misinformation, have brainwashed millions into believing despicable lies. U.S. politics have been so deformed as to become fractured. In Europe, these same political tactics are threatening to shred the continent apart. On top of all of this, it has been evident for decades that human activity has been damaging every habitat on Earth, decimating the world's biodiversity at a record pace, and directly contributing to the rise greenhouse gas emissions that are producing the most dramatic environmental change this planet has seen in 10,000 years. Today a global environmental catastrophe seems all but assured.

These are all our problems to solve. But positive change will be extremely difficult. This, of course, says nothing about the human propensity for war and killing that has been a fundamental aspect of human society since its beginning. After all, we are only 70 years away from the bloodiest war in human history. Like petulant teenagers, we now possess the power to totally and completely affect every atom on Earth, without yet the maturity to wisely use it.

Yet, I tend to look at the future differently than most other people. While the problems that still face us are monumental, they are still human problems that are ultimately amenable to human will. They are solvable, no matter how difficult. The world has been manipulated by humans for the benefit of humans and it is still within our power to make things right. Other than natural disasters, virtually everything both good and bad that has happened in our world since humans have been on it has been due to humans. To paraphrase the gospel song, "We've Got the Whole World in our Hands." Our ability to use our ever-increasing powers for good is unquestioned. Our resolve to do so is more questionable.

Walking among Us
© www.davidmichaeljacobs.com
Having said all this, I tend to look at the remainder of this century differently than most people. I see it through the prism of the UFO and abduction phenomenon. What I see does not give me confidence or optimism. In my research (described in Walking Among Us) abductees have, for many years, indicated to me that aliens and hybrids plan a possible integration or colonization of human society. I have come to agree with them. I arrived at this extreme view cautiously after spending over fifty years studying the subject - the last forty of which I spent concentrating almost exclusively on abductions. It is not a view of which I am very fond. I makes me seem as if my quality of mind is lacking and my judgment is severely impaired. It destroys my credibility in virtually all other areas of my intellectual life, and did so as a professor of history. Yet, I must adhere to it because I have found the evidence for it to be so compelling, even though I have struggled against believing the evidence for this strain of thought.

It is important to understand, however, that my ability to predict the future is spotty. At the end of 1969 I confidentially predicted to my friends in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin that the 1970s would be the decade of the "big breakthrough" - the UFO mystery would finally be solved. I thought that it was inevitable that we would break into the mysteries of UFOs and it would not take more than a decade. But, the 1970s came and went without the big breakthrough, without a solution to the mystery, and indeed, even without a substantial increase in our knowledge of the subject. Such is my predictive ability. However, I feel that a prediction is in order, one that I feel more confident in than in my youthful attempt. To paraphrase W.E.B. DuBois, I think that the problem of the 21st century will be the problem of the alien presence. This, above all, will define and drive human society and activity. I reported that abductees felt that the aliens will begin their integration program into the society within the next forty years. We now know that this has commenced. The only question that remains is when, exactly, the presaged Change will be announced-when our Anthropocene will suddenly and irrevocably end.

Over the last few years, at the end of my research career, I was working closely with almost a dozen abductees from around the world who were reporting the same frequent, intense, and troubling hybrid activity. As I describe in much more detail in Walking Among Us, the aliens seem to have entered a new phase to their program, moving from gradual advancement to an accelerated pace. Many abductees have reported this change in alien behavior first hand, as they are swept away weekly or daily to help secretly integrate hybrids into our human society.

As every day passes, these hybrids become more adept at mimicking the trappings of "normal" human behavior and activity. Meanwhile, abductees have, for years, reported training (or "Testing") procedures focused on endowing them with specific responsibilities for scenarios we can only imagine. I have investigated about twelve different people being trained for various future activities. For example, several years ago I worked with a woman who had been tasked to pilot an alien craft in order to rescue a stranded alien being chased by a group of humans (as outlined in The Threat). Others have reported similar roles, in piloting craft, calming humans, and controlling crowds.

At this point, many of those same abductees who were led through these training exercises are now in their seventies. Some have since passed away. I had once believed that this knowledge indicated the sudden approach of The Change. I had believed that the aliens would not train an abductee for no good reason. I still do, but know that my initial postulate was wrong. I wonder why it would be that the aliens might train these abductees for scenarios that they were never needed for? I do not have an answer here, but can only speculate that the integration phase of the program may merely be taking longer than expected. Or perhaps some other consequence has emerged. Whatever the reason may be, we know that the aliens seldom make mistakes and never commit to activities that are not logical, consistent, and directly related to their intended outcome. They are not ones to waste resources or time.

I have been wrong in the past and will be wrong in the future. Regardless, the alien program and alien presence continues into this century. Here, at the twilight of my career, I think about what kind of future might be left for my children and grandchildren. My fears only deepen the aliens continue their program unmolested and so little global attention has come to the phenomenon. Now, more than at any time in my career, I'm left with the great desire to be wrong about it all-for us to be alone, chagrinned with our heap of human catastrophes and human mistakes. Regrettably, I do not think that I am.